


To Shore

by hanschen_ril0w



Series: Broken Wishes [1]
Category: Frühlings Erwachen | Spring Awakening - Frank Wedekind, Spring Awakening - Sheik/Sater
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, Growing Up, M/M, Mutual Oblivious Pining, Talking, Underage Drinking, “best friends” my ass
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-21
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-05-26 15:18:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15003683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hanschen_ril0w/pseuds/hanschen_ril0w
Summary: For a blissful minute, the two stayed like that, each holding the other at his side in a state of numb and gentle contentedness. It was beautiful in its own fractured, quiet way— just Georg, Otto, the sky, and the waves.Nothing missing as they drifted in to shore.





	To Shore

**Author's Note:**

> the world needs more Georg/Otto content and I am all too happy to supply some.

        There was something raw about the way the waves stumbled one after another to meet the sand, even from a distance. The pulse of the water flickered under the silver light of the stars, breathing out with steamboat puffs and gazing up to infinity with sparkling gleams of its peeking peaks. There was something alive about the way the bay hugged the fraying waterline, even as the desolate little city belched smog into its depths and glowed deep gray against its murky blue. And even in the midst of thousands of nameless and faceless wanderers looking out each night through the fog of the smokestacks and the rows of buildings, it still seemed to Georg that the only things in the world were Otto, the sky, the waves, and the broken wishes washing with them to shore.

        “You’ve been looking at this same view for sixteen years.”

        Otto leaned his elbows on his knees, holding his half-empty bottle of hard lemonade by the neck. “Sixteen and a half, birthday boy.”

        “Sixteen and a half. Yeah. Ok.” Georg squinted out at the bay. “Sixteen and a half.”

        They were perched on the rooftop of Otto’s apartment building, a rundown cinderblock prism with too-steep stairs and too few fire escapes. There were just enough steps to reach the roof, however, where the view of the water was clear over the dusty field that led to the beach. It was mid-September and it was Georg’s birthday, so Otto had lugged a six-pack of hard lemonade and a bag of odds and ends up to the roof to celebrate in the mirror blue midnight air.

        Georg looked at him out of the corner of his eye. His skin glowed just a little in the starlight. “Are you tired of it? The view?”

        “No.” Otto took another swig of his drink. “But wherever I end up is gonna look like this, too, I guess.”

        “Sailor boy. Right.”

        “I kind of like it.”

        And that was Otto— working his ass off every day to stay in school so he could go off to college somewhere, study some trade he could operate boats for, live a quick life, join a frat, travel somewhere cheap in Europe, and come back to some little industrial town like this one to breathe in the waves for the rest of his life. Sailor boy. With those brown eyes and those little boat hats. Sometimes Georg saw that in his dreams, that version of Otto with the sea in his eyes and something like peace in his smile. It was a bit too quaint and he always looked kind of stupid in that little hat and his boat was never quite still in the water. It was maddening. Georg loved it.

        “Are the boats different every day?”

        “No, but the water is.” Otto gave him a hint of a crooked smile. “And the wind. It’s always a little different.”

        Georg glanced away from that little grin, taking a sip from his own bottle. It was his third, and he had nearly finished it. “Did you buy these for tonight? For me?”

        “I had Hanschen do it with his fake I.D.,” Otto replied, lightly bumping his shoulder into Georg’s in a playful gesture. He lingered there a second. “He made me pay an eight dollar convenience fee, too.”

        “Classic Hanschen.” Georg laughed, tilting his head back to look up to the sky. “Thank you, though.”

        Otto downed what was left in his bottle, dropping it behind him. Georg grabbed his hand for a moment on an impulse driven by tipsy gratefulness— Otto’s fingers slid between his own and stayed like that for a moment. Just touching. Georg closed his eyes.

        “You don’t really get tired of things, do you?”

        “I guess not.” The breeze warmed, and for a whisper of a moment, either boy might have guessed it was August again. “Not of things like this, at least.”

        If there were any implications in the statement, they were lost in the blink of an eye as Otto dropped his hand and reached for another bottle.

        “Where do you find all your motivation, anyway?” Georg turned to face him just a little more. His best friend. And it was strange, this thought— this idea that his best friend was the face he saw most and yet also the face he felt he would never tire of seeing; this idea that his best friend was so familiar and yet so new with every glance. “It’s like, since we were kids you’ve just been going and going in everything you do.” The rest of his thought dropped off into the bottle at his lips, unsaid. The insecurity in his own mediocrity. The reverence of the drive everyone around him seemed to have. The memories of failure after failure, and even worse, of the crushing normalcy of everything he ever did. It took all his energy to be unextraordinary, and still it was just that: unextraordinary.

        Unimportant.

        “It’s not like I get anywhere, though.” Otto shrugged. “I’m not top of our class or anything. I’m not cool.”

        “But you try. You try so hard. _That’s_ something.”

        “Yeah…” Otto looked down momentarily into his lap. Even from his angle, though, Georg could see another slight smile playing at his lips. “Remember when we were, like, eight, and everyone started piano lessons?”

        “God, yeah.” Georg couldn’t help but smile back. “And there was that recital—“

        “Yes! That recital where Ernst tripped over the piano bench.”

        “And Melchior brought his guitar, just to be a rebel.”

        “And Ilse spilled juice all over her music.”

        Georg was giggling— really _giggling_ —by now, and Otto relaxed at the sound. If a couple drinks of alcohol could make him buzzed, Georg’s dorky laugh could knock him out in one shot. “God, I remember.”

        “ _God_.”

        “You know you’re the only one who really stuck with lessons?”

        Georg turned his gaze back to the shoreline. “I know. But that’s, like…”

        “What?”

        There was a brief moment of hesitation. “That’s the only thing I’m good at.”

        “Nah, you’re just a music nerd.”

        “Hey.” Georg recoiled indignantly. “Not true.”

        Otto snorted. “You have Chopin and smooth jazz on your shower playlist.”

        “And how would _you_ know that?”

        “You showed me!”

        “Ok. Ok.” Georg put his hands up in surrender, earning a momentary clasp of his left hand from Otto as an unspoken truce. “But really. There’s nothing else I’m good at.”

        Otto was silent, watching him. “What d’you mean?”

        “Like, you have rowing and boats and stuff. And Ernst has art. And, and Thea can sing, and you all have all these other things you can do, too, like cooking and writing and math and everything. And I can play piano.” Georg passed his bottle between his hands absently. “That’s it.”

        “Not true.” Otto moved a little closer, tilting his head in concentration. “You’re really funny.”

        “That doesn’t count. I don’t _try_ to be.”

        Another pause. “You’re a sad drunk, aren’t you?”

        Georg rolled his eyes, moving as if to shove Otto with his shoulder. He ended up leaning into his side instead, and Otto let him, tilting a little into the touch so that each held up the other like fallen trees on the edge of a storm-ravaged wood. Georg rested his head on Otto’s shoulder, happily ignoring the way it hurt his neck to bend down that far, and let the other boy take his hand and rub little circles on his knuckles.

        “I’m never good at anything when I try.”

        “Neither am I.”

        “But you put up a fight.”

        Otto seemed to remember something, tapping his thumb on Georg’s wrist. “I have something for you.” He turned his free arm to reach into his bag, rifling through it until he had a secure enough hold on whatever he had remembered to search for. He twisted back, burying his face in Georg’s hair and sliding something into his hand. “It’s not much, but I wanted to hear you play it sometime.”

        A book of sheet music. Slick, shiny, pristine.

        It must have cost him over a full month of pocket money.

        “Happy birthday,” Otto whispered into Georg’s hairline, and he could hear the nervous smile in his voice.

        Georg sat up, taking the book in both hands, flipping through the pages and scanning them by the light of the stars. Even with his mind a little numb from the alcohol and his eyes a little blurred from the dark, an unmistakable and unbridled joy still settled in his chest. There was always something about new sheet music that made Georg feel _lucky_. Maybe it was the excitement of seeing the notes, the rests, the dynamics, the way the corners of the papers fell so neatly against one another. Maybe it was the thought that the world would always have more music to play, to read, to look at. Maybe it was the gentle reminder that he could read the same page as someone across the globe and they could play the same tune, no matter how many other differences separated them.

        Maybe this time it was Otto’s careful breaths by his ear.

        Wrapping one arm around the book and one arm around his friend, Georg let his eyes squeeze shut until he saw stars on the insides of his eyelids. “Thank you.”

        For a blissful minute, the two stayed like that, each holding the other at his side in a state of numb and gentle contentedness. The breeze wrapped itself around them and whispered sweet silence in their ears until the faraway noises of sleepwalkers, drunks, and waves dropped off into oblivion. It was beautiful in its own fractured, quiet way— just Georg, Otto, the sky, and the waves.

        Nothing missing as they drifted in to shore.

        “Hey.”

        Georg turned to look at him, spurred by the solemnity in Otto’s tone.

        “You make people happy, Georg. You know? You can just... You can just make people like you. Really.” He looked away, as if the sentiment had been weighing on him and he was left unanchored in its wake. “ _That’s_ something.”

        Georg only laughed. The noise caught in his throat. “Do you remember when we were in kindergarten and we used to play with Barbie dolls with Martha and Thea?”

        Otto nodded, letting out a long sigh of a breath. “And we’d always fight over the one in the blue dress, yeah.”

        “Well. She was the prettiest.”

        “She was the only one that wasn’t store-brand.”

        Georg rested his book in his lap, holding his bottle to the sky in a pensive gesture. “That’s why no one fights over us! It’s just ‘cause we’re store-brand.”

        Otto grinned. “Oh, I’m definitely supermarket brand.”

        “I’m dollar store brand.”

        “I’d say you’re Walmart brand.”

        “No, I’m the dollar store brand that’s so off-brand it gets sold for _less_ than a dollar.”

        “Oh, come on,” Otto scoffed, “Melitta had a crush on you in middle school! You’re not low-level.”

        “That was before I got acne and Melchior got tighter pants.”

        “Mmph.” Otto pursed his lips. “Ok. I can’t argue with that.”

        Georg gasped a little too dramatically, leaning in closer to Otto. “You didn’t crush on Melchior, right?”

        Otto raised his eyebrows defensively. “I did in seventh grade.”

        “Mm. Ok. Me too.”

        “Remember his birthday party that year? His mom took us all out on a boat ride.”

        “Yup.” Georg shuddered. “I got seasick.”

        “And Ilse fell overboard—“

        “Didn’t Hanschen jump in to get her out?”

        “Yeah...” Otto laughed lazily at the memory. “And she punched him in the water ‘cause he grabbed her boob by accident.”

        Georg nodded. “They both got out before I threw up, though.”

        “Thank God.”

        Finishing his drink in one giant gulp, Georg affected the most accurate impression of Melchior’s voice he could muster. “God is dead.”

        This only made Otto laugh harder, his head now falling to rest on Georg’s shoulder. “Yeah, ok, Nietzsche.”

        “I think _he_ prefers to call himself ‘woke’.”

        “You know he means well.”

        “He meant well when he wore plaid overalls to my bar mitzvah, too.” Georg shook his head teasingly. “Doesn’t mean it’s working for him.”

        “Hey, well we can’t all be fashionable.”

        With a mild glance at his own outfit and a subsequent expression of distaste, Georg shook his head. “Guess we can’t.”

        Otto hummed into the wind as he thought, lost in an idea. That was another aspect of him that Georg had memorized and locked in a box in some corner of his soul: Otto had never lost touch with the dreamy kid he was back in kindergarten and before. While Georg’s thoughts were often curtailed by some unwanted shock of insecurity, Otto still faded into a daydream or a state of wonder without shame.

        Finally, he broke the silence. “Do you feel any older?”

        Georg found his eyes wandering once more to the waves on the sand, eyebrows furrowed in clouded thought. “I don’t know. What does older feel like?”

        “I don’t know.”

        “I guess I just feel young and stupid.”

        Otto adjusted his head on Georg’s shoulder, sliding up closer to his neck. “I don’t think I want to feel older.”

        “Me either.”

        “But I want to grow up.”

        Georg tapped his fingers on his book. “You know what?”

        “What?”

  
        “When I was in seventh grade and crushing on Melchi, I couldn’t wait to be sixteen.”

        “Me too.”

        “I don’t know.” There was a brief silence. “It seems like it should feel different.”

        “Yeah.” Otto coughed, clearing his throat. “I guess it felt like the whole world was gonna happen to me by now, and now we’re that much older and I haven’t even been out of this country.”

        The next silence was longer. Thicker. Georg looked up again, scanning the stars to try to read the dreams they scrawled across the sky. Despite his searching, they kept their secrets. “I’ve never been able to see constellations like other people can.”

        “Hmm.” Otto hummed again. “I just like the dippers.”

        “How are there so many stars?”

        “They never die.”

        Georg reached for Otto’s hand absentmindedly. “Would you ever want to live forever?”

        “No.” His answer was immediate. “Everyone else would die and it’d be so fucking lonely.”

        “I would. Live forever.” Georg smiled humorlessly. “It’s lonely enough anyway. If I had forever, I think I’d feel like I’m living.”

        “It’d get so depressing.”

        “No, it wouldn’t. All I need is for someone to love me. Just for a bit.” Eyes closed. Stars gleamed. “Just a bit’s enough. And I’d be like a star.”

        “You glow enough without having to keep going forever.” Otto’s voice sounded oddly soft. Almost anxious.

        Georg squeezed his hand, reveling in the world just at his fingertips. “I’m not that bright. It’s better to be a blaze, like you, right? You light up all at once and do your best and it’s better than fading out for forever. That’s _my_ light. I guess it’s there but it’s dull.”

        Otto raised his head to look him in the eye. “I love your light.”

        Georg dropped his gaze to his lap, then to the sky. “There’s the little dipper.”

        “Mm.” He ran his fingers through Georg’s, lacing them together again and again and again. “You really don’t feel like you’re living?”

        “I haven’t _done_ anything.”

        “You’re doing this.”

        Georg cracked a smile. “Yeah. Drinking hard lemonade with Otto Lammermeier on his stupid rooftop on my stupid birthday. Ok. But I haven’t _been_ anywhere. I haven’t _learned_ anything. I haven’t even dated anyone.”

        “I always forget you’ve never dated anybody.”

        “Yeah. Thanks for reminding me.”

        “Why don’t you ask anyone out?”

        Georg shook his head before Otto had even finished his question. “I’d have to try. You know. I’m never good at things I try to do. And I’d just get rejected, so.”

        “How do you know?”

        “It took a whole year to get Anna to return your call. And you’re _you_. I’m… I’m me.”

        “Yeah. You’re you.”

        “Yeah. And no one likes me.”

        Otto blinked. “I like you.”

        “No one _likes_ me.”

        There was a moment in which neither said a thing, but both looked as if they had some statement or question stuck in their throat. “Someone does.”

        “Ha.” Georg coughed on his own laugh. “I’ve never even been kissed.”

        “Really?”

        “Yeah, really. These glasses don’t exactly scream boyfriend material. They seem more painted-sterling-silver to me.”

        Otto gave the joke a faint smile, but remained silent. Georg considered cracking open another bottle of hard lemonade, and was within a second of doing it when Otto spoke again. “Are you sure no one likes you?”

        “No one likes me.”

        “ _I_  like you.”

        “No one _likes_ me.”

        Otto swallowed. “I _like_ you.”

        Instead of any reaction of surprise or joy or doubt that Otto may have been expecting, Georg only fixed him with an overwhelming expression of disappointment. “No one loves me.”

        Otto stared at him, dragging his gaze from eye to eye and down to his lips. There was something inherently strange about the moment, as there is with every such moment. The feeling of someone leaning in, closing eyes, parting lips, and sharing one breath… It was all so unfamiliar to Georg, from the numb fluttering in his entire body to the completely _bizarre_ sensation of someone else’s lips on his own. And so he sat there, every ounce of him flooding warm and hazy with euphoria, eyes shut tight and mouth parted in vague surprise as Otto kissed him.

        Oh.

         _Otto was kissing him._

        He pulled back though, laughing this light little laugh that made Georg giggle dizzily, too. And then he was kissing him _again_ , and this time Georg was moving his lips to try to match what Otto was doing and Otto was open-mouthed and moving against him and Otto was holding him and smiling against his mouth and cradling his head like it was gold and Georg was gold and they were gold and there was just Otto and Otto and Otto and Otto for forever and forever and _oh God that’s heaven._

        “Happy birthday,” Otto grinned, whispering right against Georg’s lips.

        And there was nothing more, nothing less, and nothing missing as he drifted on waves of gold to the star-kissed shore.

 

**Author's Note:**

> hey! i’d love to hear from all y’all, so please drop by in the comments or hmu on tumblr @hanschen-ril0w <3 thanks for reading!


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